Lake Pukaki.

When all the world beside, quick lips would praise,
Thou keepest thine own court,—aloof, and chaste.
Lost avalanches, down shale facings raced,
Call dying homage, and the glacier pays
Full tribute, where the sapping water slays
The gleaming ice-forms with a sword of haste.
Thy life the draining sky and sea-rim waste,
But thou and charm abide through cloistered days.

Winged outlaws know thy sanctuary—pale;
Stars climb to gaze upon thy beauty prone;
One on whose vigil Time shall not prevail,—
White with the cares each hostile year bestows—
The chief of all the captains round thy throne,
Great Aorangi guards a queen's repose.